NHS in ‘eternal winter’ as pressure on hospitals grows

Warning bells are ringing again
over the NHS' ability to cope with the expected influx of patients in winter
months as reports show A&E departments across England are already failing
to keep up.

According to the Care Quality
Commission's annual State of Care report just 38 percent of urgent and
emergency services have been rated as 'good' and 5 percent 'outstanding' during
its inspection regime, leaving nine percent 'inadequate' and 48 percent in need
of improvement.

Also, the number of people waiting
for more than four hours in A&E overall rose by 30 percent from 2014/15 to
2015/16 as demand outstripped system capacity, raising concerns that the system
is on the verge of meltdown.

"The NHS is on its knees and,
this winter, areas will implode around the country. There is no reserve left,"
said Dr Mark Holland, president of the Society for Acute Medicine.

"We coined the phrase eternal
winter months ago in relation to increasingly poor performance and this data is
clear evidence that is what we are now dealing with. Over the coming weeks and
months, if we see a major increase in admissions due to flu or bed closures due
to norovirus, we will collapse."

In August, there were 1.9 billion
attendances at A&E, marking a rise of 3.6 percent over August 2015, it
said, while just 91.0 percent of patients were admitted, transferred or
discharged within four hours of arrival, falling well below the 95 percent
standard.

Record transfer delays

The data also show 188,340 delayed
transfer or care days for the month, compared to 145,093 for the year-ago
period – the highest number since monthly data were first collected in August
2010.

Increased A&E attendances and
emergency admissions are affecting the ability of a growing number of trusts to
meet their performance and financial targets, the CQC noted, but also stressed
that this growing number of delayed transfers out of hospital - because of failings
in the social care system - is a critical issue.

The Royal College of Emergency
Medicine says cuts to social care are having a dramatic effect on emergency
departments – "increasing the workload on staff and contributing to Exit
Block".

"August saw a record number of
delayed days and a third of this is attributable to a lack of social care,"
noted Dr Taj Hassan, president of the College.

"The report shows how failed
systems are having a dramatic impact on secondary care. These failures in the
community are showing that this results in Emergency Departments becoming
overcrowded due to exit block from lack of access to hospital beds and then
patients being delayed from getting back into the community. Exit block
overcrowding causes delays to essential treatment in the ED and significantly
raises the risk of death".

The RCEM is urging the government
to increase its investment both in emergency care as well as social care.
"Failure to act now will also more than likely take us past the tipping point
for being able to stabilise such fragile emergency systems," Dr Hassan warned.